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KMD Architects Sees Detroit Super Bowl Complex as Innovative Urban Model
Published: 2006-01-31 | Article Views: 1198
The new home for the Detroit Lions football team, Ford Field, is more than just the host of this year's Super Bowl.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (New Urban Observer) January 31, 2006 - The new home for the Detroit Lions football team, Ford Field, is more than just the host of this year's Super Bowl. It is a notable achievement in the area of stadium design and, with this most-watched of American games, will be unveiled to millions of people throughout the world, both visiting Detroit and watching on television.
The Super Bowl offers a glimpse of the future of stadium design and perhaps more importantly, principals of new urbanism at work. More than just a football stadium, Ford Field is a mixed-use development that creates a sense of place by linking the new stadium with two distinguished 80-year-old buildings that contain 140 luxury suites overlooking the field, a retail pavilion with restaurants, commercial office space, and a future business and conference center hotel.
The international architectural firm of KMD was brought in as the masterplan architect and design architect to collaborate with a local design team to create the same spirit of reinvention it accomplished with projects such as Two Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, One Colorado in Old Pasadena, California and most recently The Grove at Farmers Market in Los Angeles. These notable projects have served as a catalyst to the revitalization of their cities and are visited by millions of people each year.
"The Detroit warehouse complex through its connection becomes a living room to the stadium, and also the living room to the City of Detroit," said Herbert McLaughlin, KMD's Design Director. "It should be enjoyed year-round for concerts, shows, banquets and local events -- thus becoming a regional destination. An example of this transformation is in our design of the Sacramento Public Library, where we connected a library with a large event space. Now the library is one of the premier places to hold weddings and other events -- a regional destination, not just a library."
KMD has been researching the growing trend of reintroducing sports stadiums to downtowns in order to spur economic, social and community growth. The Ford Field complex promotes revitalization by luring and inviting pedestrians and neighbors with celebratory spaces such as the 7-story atrium, and other gathering areas that foster interaction, build community, and promote civic pride. The glass wall of the atrium provides transparency to show movement and generate excitement. The design also blends the recollection of the past, along with modern materials to create a design that is sensitive to its surrounding environment. Inside the complex, the thematic approach is seen in the low brick wall that surrounds the stadium, which is complemented by digital scoreboards, curved glass walls that allow for natural light to come through the complex in the atrium, and along the roofline of the dome.
One of Ford Field's most vital achievements is its ability to sustain year-round revenue through its diversity of uses from the warehouse portion of the complex. KMD's master plan and design of the warehouse includes everything from a Business and Conference Center Hotel and office space, to retail and themed entertainment that celebrate Detroit's vivid and varied cultural history. Both the stadium and the tenant organizations housed in the warehouse share luxury food service, laundry facilities, power plant and other amenities -- a breakthrough initiative to facilitate efficiency through shared infrastructure.
The new concept was developed with William Clay Ford, Jr.; The Hammes Company as Developer and Project Manager; Rossetti Associates as the Stadium Designer; and the Smith Group as the Architect of Record. The design team combined the new 65,000-seat Ford Stadium with the renovated 750,000 square- foot warehouse complex. Approximately $30 million was saved though the adaptive reuse of the Hudson's warehouse structure, whose preservation helps sustain the industrial history and legacy of Detroit.
Ford Field represents an important milestone in the reinvention of mixed-use developments; it is a new urban experience that serves as an economic activator as well as a new shift in architectural thinking. The development helps to re-create a successful and lively city that can change with the marketplace, as well as support the ideas, cultures and lifestyles of an ever-growing and diverse population. The success of Ford Field is already apparent with the recent completion of the 3,000-car garage and a 100,000 square-foot build-to-suit office for PriceWaterhouseCoopers that ties into the Warehouse as part of the original KMD master plan.
About KMD
Since 1963, KMD (Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz) has combined innovation and creativity to provide exceptional commercial, healthcare, academic, and corporate architectural services. Based in San Francisco, CA with eight offices in four countries, the firm believes that experimentation and investigation of interpersonal interaction with the built environment are central to their work as architects, planners and researchers.
Website: http://www.kmd-arch.com/
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